The Prince's Pawn
Aria
If you can possibly avoid it, never work for guys named Dave. Trust me on this; they’re nothing but bad news.
My first “real” job was when I was twenty. It was supposed to be an entry-level developer job. But when the offer letter came, it turned out to be an executive assistant. The guy who gave me the double-cross—Dave.
Yes, my resume was entirely composed of lies, but he didn’t know that.
Three years later, I had done enough networking with movers and shakers in tech to get my first sales engineer job, which was awesome. What wasn’t so awesome was that it came at half the market rate. The boss who low-balled me—Dave.
And now here I am, officially a mid-career twenty-six-year-old being assigned to a sales demo in which I’m not allowed to speak. By… you guessed it, Dave.
And it’s not the same guy, by the way. That’s three separate Daves in three consecutive jobs that have brought me nothing but misery. At least the third Dave pays me well. But you know what they say about golden handcuffs.
“So you want me to be the sales engineer in charge of closing the deal… but I can’t actually talk to the client?” I stood in front of Dave’s desk with my arms crossed, trying to look down on him. But it didn’t work. He was barely shorter than me as he reclined in his chair.
“Well, their country has a new king and he’s a little more religious than the last one, so that means as a woman, it might be offensive to the company reps for you to instruct them. I mean, you understand what that’s like. Women aren’t allowed to teach in your faith either, right?” he asked, trying really hard to sound nonchalant.
I gave a tight smile. Everyone at my company thought I was religious on account of wearing long skirts and hoodies every day. I never corrected them because my beliefs are none of their business.
Nothing I do outside of work is their business. I wear what I wear because there are serious consequences for people accidentally touching my skin, and I don’t want to deal with a single one of them.